Photo by Jake McNeill: Russell-Tyler-Ruthton boys basketball players Chase Christianson (left to right), Drew Werkman and Chase Gylling get back on defense after an RTR basket during the second half of the Section 3A boys basketball championship game against Hills-Beaver Creek at Southwest Minnesota State University’s R/A Facility on Saturday afternoon. The Knights defeated the Patriots 64-54 to advance to the 3A Championship game on Thursday.

MARSHALL — The reigning state champions continued their quest for a third consecutive section title on Saturday afternoon. The third-seeded Russell-Tyler-Ruthton Knights rallied past No. 1 Hills-Beaver Creek in the Section 3A South boys basketball subsection championship to capture a 64-54 victory.

Coming into the game, the Patriots were seeking their first subsection title since the 2010-11 season. Yet, the Knights’ experience prevailed to send RTR to their third consecutive section championship with the opportunity for a third consecutive state tournament berth.

Trailing 28-21 at halftime, the Knights came out of the locker room looking like a new team. Chase Christianson got RTR started with a corner 3-pointer. On the defensive end, Meyer dived into a passing lane to force a loose ball and knocked the ball out on HBC to give the Knights possession.

RTR wasn’t able to turn the turnover into points but Meyer got a putback bucket on the next play to make it a one-possession game for the first time since the first five minutes of the game and Werkman knocked down a corner 3 to give RTR a 29-28 lead, its first since they led 1-0.

Once they got the lead, RTR didn’t let up. Werkman scored the first points after HBC’s timeout with an up-and-under. Bush seemed poised to score the Patriots’ first points of the half after he came up with a steal with nobody to beat, but pressure from Chase Christianson coming from behind forced a miss and Blake Christianson capitalized with a 3-pointer on the other end to finish off RTR’s 13-0 run to start the half.

The Knights played quality defense in the first half but took it up to another level in the second. After holding the Patriots to 28 first-half points, RTR held Hills-Beaver Creek scoreless through the first six minutes of the second.

“We were talking at halftime that they’re going to do a dribble-handoff and we’re just going to switch that and talk it out,” RTR guard Gylling said. “Just have to keep playing defense, making some shots. We’re just playing our best ball of the season.”

Bakken finally ended the Patriots’ scoring drought six minutes into the half with a layup but Werkman immediately came back with a corner 3 and Chase Christianson earned a pair of free throws on a fast break to make the score 39-30 with 11 minutes to play.

“Play with confidence. I’ve been able to hit those shots all year and everybody’s been trusting me to take those shots in-game,” Werkman, who’s primarily dominated as a post player, said of his pair of 3-pointers. “After that second one, after we got that lead right after that 3, everybody had gotten a whole lot more energy. Everybody was moving and we started to calm down and get all those jitters out. First half, we couldn’t hit anything, offense wasn’t going well. We held them to 28 points but we couldn’t get anything going on the offensive end, so getting those shots up on the offensive end was really nice.”

Werkman went on to finish the night with a game-high 18 points, 14 of which came in the second half, while Chase Christianson and Blake Christianson added another 14 and 13 respectively.

From there, the Knights steadily increased their lead until a Chase Christianson 3-pointer rattled in to give RTR its largest lead of the game, 56-38. The Patriots weren’t able to do anything else but add window dressing from there. Riggins Rheault knocked down a 3-pointer for Hills-Beaver Creek at the buzzer to trim RTR’s final margin of victory to 10 points.

Andrew Meyer scored the game’s first point with a free throw after being fouled on a dunk attempt just over a minute into the game but it was all Hills-Beaver Creek from there. EJ Wegener hit a go-ahead floater and knocked down a 3-pointer on the next possession to give RTR a 5-1 lead. Cameron Allen’s block on Drew Werkman in the post set up a Jamin Metzger layup and Allen came up with another strip in the post to set up a Sawyer Bosch transition layup to force RTR to call its first timeout at 14:53.

The Patriots’ run didn’t end with the Knights’ timeout. After both teams went scoreless for nearly two minutes, Micah Bush elevated for a layup off the glass and Beau Bakken converted a short jumper to give Hills-Beaver Creek a 13-0 run behind five different scorers. RTR had yet to commit a foul in the game.

RTR called another timeout in hopes of shifting momentum in their favor and this time they were successful. Chase Christianson ended the Knights’ five-minute drought with a corner 3 off the feed from Blake Christianson. Chase then blocked a dunk attempt from Allen on the next trip down.

Metzger responded to Christianson’s 3 with a bucket to bring the Patriots’ lead back to double digits but Meyer worked the ball into the paint and kicked it out to Blake Christianson on the wing for 3 points. A defensive tie-up from Drew Werkman then gave RTR the ball back to set up Meyer’s second-chance turnaround jumper at 9:33 to cut HBC’s lead to 15-9.

“We just talked about weathering the storm and facing and getting through the adversity together as a team,” Gravley said. “We’ve been through a lot. We’ve got a couple of seniors in Drew and Blake who have been on a couple of teams that have made these runs, so we’ve had some experience… At that point in the game, it’s just been a simple matter of we had missed some really good shots that we normally don’t. We knew if we could just right the ship in our minds that we would compete.”

Posting up near the free throw line, Jamin Metzger beat a defender with a pass off the glass to himself for a layup and Brody Metzger followed up with a 3-pointer on the next possession to bring HBC’s lead back to 20-9.

A Bush block set up a Bakken layup but Werkman came back and turned an offensive rebound into a pair of second-chance points at the charity stripe. A Gylling steal off a deflected pass then set Andrew Meyer up for a layup to bring the Knights within 5 points, 22-17, with five minutes remaining in the first half.

Meyer scored 13 points on the night and was the primary scorer for the Knights in the first half. When the offense was struggling early, he served as a sparkplug, going into halftime with 9 points as the only Knight with multiple field goals.

“I just knew what I needed to do. At that moment and at that time, this is a big game,” Meyer, in his first year with the team after transferring from B.O.L.D., said. “We need to win this, so I need to be a leader and take over and do the right thing.”

HBC continued to charge ahead to a 28-19 with two minutes to play. Meyer knocked down one more shot on the next play but the teams went scoreless for the final 1:43 to go into the locker room with Hills-Beaver Creek holding a 7-point lead.

Saturday’s game was the third meeting between the two teams this year. Hills-Beaver Creek defeated RTR 52-41 on Feb. 1 but RTR salvaged a split in the regular-season series with an 83-65 win on Feb. 26.

Russell-Tyler-Ruthton will face the No. 3 seed out of the North bracket, Central Minnesota Christian, in the section championship game at Southwest Minnesota State University on Thursday at 5 p.m. The Bluejays won the section three years in a row from 2015 through 2017 but are looking for their first section championship since then. RTR, meanwhile, is looking for a threepeat of its own as section champs and a repeat as state champs.

“You get to section championship time — or even subsection championship — and there’s nothing but good teams left,” Gravley said. “We’ve got a lot of respect for the teams that are left and we have a lot of respect for Hills-Beaver Creek. They’re a very good team, they’re very talented and I’ve got a feeling they’ll be back in this position sooner or later.”